{"id":42185,"date":"2025-01-08T08:45:29","date_gmt":"2025-01-08T13:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=42185"},"modified":"2025-01-08T08:45:29","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T13:45:29","slug":"zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage.html","title":{"rendered":"Zachary Levi, \u201cShazam!\u201d Actor, Paints Apocalyptic Picture of AI Usage"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_42182\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-42182\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-ai_credit-Adobe-Stock_Inset-Fred-Duval-Shutterstock.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-42182\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-ai_credit-Adobe-Stock_Inset-Fred-Duval-Shutterstock.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-42182\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adobe Stock | Inset: Fred Duval \/ Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Creatives and artificial intelligence (AI) have had a contentious relationship since AI usage has exploded in both the arts and academics. Actor Zachary Levi of \u201cShazam!\u201d and \u201cTangled\u201d fame had some strong words against AI on \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8ej2QASg6DU\">The George Janko Show<\/a>.\u201d Levi compared the influx of AI usage to the biblical flood of Noah in Genesis and warned that it could destroy the entertainment industry. \u201cWe can talk all day long and wax philosophical about how do we save the industry from itself in the way that it treats people, or it doesn\u2019t make great content or whatever. Guys, honestly like, t-minus two years from now, good luck finding any job, because the studios will have a technology \u2026 it\u2019s already basically here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He cited the example of studios offering a \u201ccreator sandbox\u201d where individuals can use AI tools to draw from properties owned by the studio and create their own movies. \u201cAnd you can type in anything that\u2019s a Warner Brothers asset, so it can be Shazam and Batman and Neo from \u2018The Matrix,\u2019 and you can type in all these characters, and you want them to go on a treasure hunt on Mars and I want it to feel like a Stephen Spielberg movie, go.\u2019 And then it will make that movie, and it will look indiscernible from human-made, in fact it will look amazing. And it will be entirely animated, but it will look like real life. This is where we\u2019re about to be.\u201d He told Janko he was creating his own studio to stay ahead. \u201cRight now, the studio I\u2019m trying to build feels very much like the ark that God was telling Noah, \u2018You gotta go build this thing, because the flood is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is not the first time Levi has expressed concerns over AI. Speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/d4vPfXgB-2E\">Glenn Beck<\/a> in December, Levi shared a more apocalyptic view of AI. \u201cAs far as I can tell, we are very close, within two years two to five years of the entire face of this planet being unrecognizable when it comes to how [AI\u2019s}] going to infiltrate every single industry and workforce. Like, I don\u2019t think people realize that we\u2019re on the precipice of massive layoffs.\u201d At <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/zachary-levi-ai-artificial-intelligence-wga-sag-strike-chicago-fanexpo\/\">FanExpo in Chicago<\/a> in August 2023 during the writers\u2019 striker, Levi urged his fans to show their support for human creators. \u201cWe have to recognize that that power can very quickly consume all of us,\u201d he warned. \u201cSo know that, as Hollywood, we\u2019re asking you guys to support us as humans, because very quickly, even if we get great contracts in this round, a few years from now AI is going to be so good that you won\u2019t be able to tell the difference.\u201d He warned that technology \u201cwill come for us all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Returning to Levi\u2019s discussion with Janko, he stated his belief that there would always be a niche for human creators and people who want to support them. But he painted a picture of how tempting AI could be as well, such as movies being created that utilize deceased actors taking on their iconic roles in new AI-generated movies. He gave the example of the late Gene Kelly being used to make new movies. \u201cAnd again, I don\u2019t want to support that but are you kidding me?! . . . Like a new \u2018Singing in the Rain\u2019 sequel? I want to watch that, take my money,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be a doomsdayer, but I cannot stress this enough, please . . . wake up to AI. Please wake up to it. It is not, \u2018Oh that\u2019s fun,\u2019 or some passing fad or whatever. It is going to replace so many jobs, and it\u2019s going to happen way faster than you think it\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Creatives and artificial intelligence (AI) have had a contentious relationship since AI usage has exploded in both the arts and academics. Actor Zachary Levi of \u201cShazam!\u201d and \u201cTangled\u201d fame had some strong words against AI on \u201cThe George Janko Show.\u201d Levi compared the influx of AI usage to the biblical flood of Noah in Genesis&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":627,"featured_media":42182,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Zachary Levi, \u201cShazam!\u201d Actor, Paints Apocalyptic Picture of AI Usage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zachary Levi, \u201cShazam!\u201d Actor, Paints Apocalyptic Picture of AI Usage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Creatives and artificial intelligence (AI) have had a contentious relationship since AI usage has exploded in both the arts and academics. Actor Zachary Levi of \u201cShazam!\u201d and \u201cTangled\u201d fame had some strong words against AI on \u201cThe George Janko Show.\u201d Levi compared the influx of AI usage to the biblical flood of Noah in Genesis&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-01-08T13:45:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-ai_credit-Adobe-Stock_Inset-Fred-Duval-Shutterstock.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Zachary Levi, \u201cShazam!\u201d Actor, Paints Apocalyptic Picture of AI Usage","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Zachary Levi, \u201cShazam!\u201d Actor, Paints Apocalyptic Picture of AI Usage","og_description":"Creatives and artificial intelligence (AI) have had a contentious relationship since AI usage has exploded in both the arts and academics. Actor Zachary Levi of \u201cShazam!\u201d and \u201cTangled\u201d fame had some strong words against AI on \u201cThe George Janko Show.\u201d Levi compared the influx of AI usage to the biblical flood of Noah in Genesis&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2025-01-08T13:45:29+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-ai_credit-Adobe-Stock_Inset-Fred-Duval-Shutterstock.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage.html","name":"Zachary Levi, \u201cShazam!\u201d Actor, Paints Apocalyptic Picture of AI Usage","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-ai_credit-Adobe-Stock_Inset-Fred-Duval-Shutterstock.jpg","datePublished":"2025-01-08T13:45:29+00:00","dateModified":"2025-01-08T13:45:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/f0820942b588b1bdba133d7ca3c8eb6e"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-ai_credit-Adobe-Stock_Inset-Fred-Duval-Shutterstock.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-ai_credit-Adobe-Stock_Inset-Fred-Duval-Shutterstock.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Adobe Stock | Inset: Fred Duval \/ Shutterstock.com"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/zachary-levi-shazam-actor-paints-apocalyptic-picture-of-ai-usage.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Zachary Levi, \u201cShazam!\u201d Actor, Paints Apocalyptic Picture of AI Usage"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/f0820942b588b1bdba133d7ca3c8eb6e","name":"rdewing","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/61e\/61e772313b3ddff45ee0c1a275e8dfc5x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/61e\/61e772313b3ddff45ee0c1a275e8dfc5x96.jpg","caption":"rdewing"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/rdewing"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/627"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42188,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42185\/revisions\/42188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}